Fighting with the Undertow – November update

A monthly playlist of new punk rock, alt rock and indie music tracks

This update includes Rage Against The Machine, Royel Otis, The National, Slowdive, Blue Smiley, and more.

Welcome to Fire Red Sky’s latest playlist of the 20 best punk rock, alt rock and indie music track to be released in the last month.

Or that would usually be the case, but things have been a little all over the place since I lost my job so this post has been sitting, neglected and unfinished, in my drafts folder even though the playlist itself was ready more or less on time.

The song list still aims to help me (and hopefully you too) wade through the deluge of new music and maybe hook our next favourite band or album, but there should be another one coming in the next couple of weeks as I play catch up with my writing schedule.

What hasn’t changed is that I update the Spotify playlist each month with 20 new tracks and try to include each band/artist just once per year to challenge myself to keep seeking out new music.

Here’s some highlights from November’s Fighting with the Undertow:

First up is some perfectly paced alt rock from Starcrawler, whose new song ‘Learn To Say Goodbye’ offers plenty of zip and more than a nod to Karen O from singer Arrow De Wilde. The LA five piece, very much new to me, formed in 2015 and have three albums out, so I look forward to digging back through their catalogue at some point.

There’s shade to Starcrawler’s light in the form of ‘Pond’ by Blue Smiley, another 2010s band but one whose time was tragically cut short by the fentanyl-related death of singer/guitarist Brian Nowell. The Philadelphia trio’s previously unreleased track ‘Pond’ is unsettled and skittish, its heavy shoegaze almost offering more of a mood than a tune.

On ‘Special’ Scowl continue to hone their blend of hardcore and alt rock, leaning here towards the latter as tuneful clean vocals predominate and some crunchy Stone Temple Pilots guitars make a welcome cameo, that latter point not one I ever thought I’d make. The Bay Area hardcore band recently jumped from Flatspot Records to Dead Oceans (home to Phoebe Bridgers, Slowdive and Japanese Breakfast), which will undoubtedly continue their upward trajectory and, on the strength of ‘Special’, continue the evolution of their early hardcore sound.

Continuing with the hardcore theme, there’s also room in this month’s playlist for Punitive Damage and Pest Control. And with names like that you can guess what you’re getting - and it’s not tuneful vocals and crunchy Stone Temple Pilots guitars. ‘Hate Training’, from the Pacific Northwest’s Punitive Damage, is a cathartic, sub-two minutes, complete with breakdown and nine-second guitar solo, while ‘Time Bomb’ sees Leeds-based Pest Control bring their urgent brand of crossover thrash.

Being Dead’s ‘Blanket of My Bone’ is all restless changes, Cults-style 00s indie doing 60s pop and handclaps. The song’s riff echoes ‘So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’ by The Byrds, but the band shifts too fast to be pinned down as mere classicists (or, worse, power pop revivalists).

From heavy Greek post-punk to Nigerian rock to a ‘Deutschpunk-Projekt’, this year’s playlists do occasionally step away from the anglophone world and there’s another movement in that direction with the joyful ‘Chômage’ by Alvilda. The breezy Parisian band released their debut, C'est D​é​jà L'heure, last month and, despite ‘chômage’ translating as the hugely personally ironic ‘unemployment’, it’s another album I’ll be long-listing for my best of 2024.

Fighting with the Undertow - November 2024 update

1. Rage Against The Machine - Sleep Now in the Fire (live at 2000 Democratic National Convention)

2. Scowl - Special

3. Starcrawler - Learn to Say Goodbye

4. Royel Otis - If Our Love is Dead

5. Stick To Your Guns - Severed Forever

6. Alvilda - Chômage

7. Punitive Damage - Hate Training

8. Trauma Ray - Chameleon

9. The National - Fake Empire (live in Rome)

10. Being Dead - Blanket of My Bone

11. Shadow Show - Baba Yaga

12. Tripper - Addicted

13. Slowdive - Kisses (electronic version 3)

14. Balance And Composure - Ain’t It Sweet

15. Grumpy - Holding

16. Blue Smiley - Pond

17. Mud Whale - Sacrifice

18. Pest Control - Time Bomb

19. Mannequin Death Squad - Keep Me Honest

20. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Raindrops Cast in Lead

Playlist image and main image by Volodymyr Proskurovskyi on Unsplash